


Convalescence

by hithelleth



Category: Quantico (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It, Future Fic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-01
Updated: 2016-07-01
Packaged: 2018-07-19 10:31:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7357672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hithelleth/pseuds/hithelleth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two members of the Haas family are in the spotlight of the American public. Only a few people know about the other two in the middle of the Canadian nowhere.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Convalescence

Clayton flinches when he hears the door being unlocked. He always flinches when someone is at the door, although he knows the chance of anyone finding him here is miniscule. The shame at his own cowardice makes him nauseous for a moment; he didn’t use to be one to succumb to fears, but he supposes a near-death experience would do this to a man.

His skin pulls, burning, as he moves too fast into a sitting position from where he was lying on the couch, his hand reaching for the gun hidden under a throw pillow – it is practically useless keeping it there with his reflexes, but it makes him feel somewhat safer.

He exhales loud enough that it carries across the living room into the hallway as Cassie enters.

She sends a reassuring smile his way, worry etching lines around the corners of her mouth all too early for her age.

“It’s just me,” she says, laying her bag and an armful of her pupils' notebooks on the coffee table.

The statement is unnecessary. Nobody else comes here. Not to this end of the cul-de-sac on the ugly side of the lake with untrimmed brushes and rocky shores. Cassie likes it, of course; she spends hours outside in the wilderness, painting whenever it isn’t freezing, or walking round the scattered boulders and gnarled trees for miles and miles.

It is big enough a town that a stranger doesn’t raise suspicion and not everyone gets in other people’s business, but small enough to be off the radar.

He understands why Cassie came here, where she could drown in anonymity, using his mother’s maiden name, the one he has now appropriated himself. Hiding or not, it is safest to stick close to the truth: hence, they are still father and daughter. Even the excuse that he lost his job due to illness isn’t that much of a lie.

“I’ve picked this up at the post office.”

Clayton startles from his thoughts to find Cassie standing in front of him, offering him an envelope. It is addressed to the P.O. Box rented in her name, a Mexican stamp on it. No one would think it odd, since people know Cassie used to live in Mexico for a couple of years before she moved up here to the middle of the Canadian nowhere.

“You haven’t opened it,” he notices. She never does, not with these envelopes forwarded from Mexico by Fletcher – the routine they established after Cassie first made contact with Shelby.

There is another envelope inside, unaddressed. The letter is printed and unsigned as usual, the names left out or replaced with generic epithets. If anyone looked, they would find no fingerprints, at least not the author’s.

Later, he will take time and read it again (and again), but for now he reads through it quickly, thirsty for words.

He folds the letter when he is done, but holds on to it as he slumps back into the couch.

“Thank you for doing this,” he says to Cassie, not meaning the two cups of tea she brings from the kitchen.

She shrugs. “It’s all right.” She pulls a blanket around her shoulders, sitting down beside him.

Clayton grimaces. “I forgot to turn up the heating earlier. Sorry.” He likes to keep the temperature on the verge of chilly, for otherwise it always feels too hot, too reminiscent of the hell he has lived through, suffocating on air when the flames closed in –

“It’s gonna warm up soon enough,” Cassie says, cutting his plunge into the horrid memories short.

“You’re too good to me,” he murmurs.

Cassie scoffs.

“I…” he starts, but Cassie doesn’t let him go on. “We’ve had this conversation before, okay?”  

They have.

_“They’ll be watching Caleb,” he said._

_Claire would make sure of that. Caleb was smart enough to notice and dodge most, if not all, kinds of surveillance, but perhaps he couldn’t risk it. They needed to let Caleb know the truth, though. Of course, Cassie talked to him every now and again, but this information wasn’t something she could just tell him._

_“There is one other person I’d trust,” Clayton said. “But I can’t ask you to...”_

_“I’ll do it.” Cassie said._

_He stared at her, only then realizing she had grown up, as she waved off all his guild-ridden confessions._

_“I slept with Shelby –”_

_“While you and Mom were separated,” she amended._

_“I ruined Caleb’s life –”_

_“For like five minutes.” Cassie rolled her eyes, but then she grew serious. “Yeah, sometimes you were a shitty father. But you still have time to make it up.”_

_He divulged the truth about Omaha then, about the set-up and the cover-up._

_“You were acting under orders,” Cassie pointed out._

“I’ve screwed up, a lot,” Clayton repeats now, reminding both her and himself, still a little incredulous that she is sticking with him instead of kicking him to the curb.

“So you have,” Cassie agrees. “But, again, at least you didn’t try to fake a bombing that turned out real and to all you know got your spouse killed in order to win the elections,” Cassie spits the last words out with that cold anger that reminds him of Claire and…

_“It wasn’t supposed to go off,” Claire whispered, the expression on her face panicked, horrified – later, he would ask himself whether it was because of all the lives lost or just because it could have ruined her – before the security approached, rushing her out of the building._

_In a blur of screams and dust, all that mattered was finding Caleb…_

_Caleb hardly breathing… getting him out… the walls crumbling, Shelby scrambling for him… heat and pain… and the deafening silence when the way out front was cut off by the collapsed ceiling…_

_All the while he was thinking he wouldn’t make it. Even if he made it out, what then? Keep his mouth shut and pretend he didn’t remember what Claire said… and if he said anything, he would be a dead man._

_Caleb could die… how was he supposed to…_

_His lungs and skin felt like they were on fire, and he could barely see in front of him, crawling over rubble-strewn floor… He slipped his wallet into the pocket of an unconscious man, his mind somehow still categorizing data such as height and built and clothes similar to his, and dropped his phone and badge next to him, taking the man’s wallet and phone instead… (They would find him burned beyond recognition later, identifying him by the badge – not bothering to verify the DNA, probably on Claire’s assurances.)_

_Somehow he got out, slithering away in the mess outside in spite of his legs giving in and his lungs full of smoke. He found a hole of what could barely be called a shelter with a roof over his head on a closed construction site down an alleyway, called Cassie, crushed the phone with a stone and passed out._

_He isn’t sure how he made it, slipping in and out of consciousness for hours upon hours before the guys Cassie had sent found him in the middle of the night – the guys he would have arrested any other day – and afterwards on the long road as they smuggled him across the border. Cassie got him into a hospital under a fake name, blowing up half her inheritance from her grandmother, not as much for the treatment as for discretion. Even so, it took weeks before he could leave the hospital, although the doctors called him lucky for getting off so easy out of a freak camping gas container malfunction – the cover story Cassie made up._

And now, here he is.

Cassie is keeping him sane and keeping his guilt in check, like just now, when he rubs his face with both hands, trying to chase away the flashbacks.

“People died because of me, too,” he reminds her.

“Pot, kettle,” she says, “We’ve all fucked up. I’ve got my partner killed.”

It is how she ended here, teaching art at school and sometimes selling some of her own, not so much for an extra income – after all, his mother left her and Caleb almost all of her sizeable estate – but for the pleasure of sharing it. 

_An accident, they called it. He and Claire made sure to spin it so that their daughter emerged out of it heroic, got a medal. Yet, she resigned months later, one of the FBI’s best and brightest, and went on a humanitarian relief work to Mexico before ending up in Canada._

A reflection of how he feels inside flits over Cassie’s face, but then she shakes her head.

“We can never make it right,” she says. “We can beat ourselves up about it for an eternity or we can at least try and be better, live better.”

She covers his hand with hers, squeezing it.

He sighs and closes his eyes.

After a while, she asks, softly, “How is Caleb?”

“Good,” he says, smiling. “Saving the world.” As underserving as he feels of it, it makes him proud.

Cassie grins. “Of course he is.”

She told him she blamed herself for leaving, that she still does, mostly for leaving Caleb, and wondered if things would have been different, had she been there.

Clayton can tell she is relieved as much as he that Caleb seems to be well – or as well as he can be, after everything. He doesn’t mention it, though, fiddling with the letter instead, running the creases between his fingers before he puts it down on the coffee table.

“Alex got a new job. With the NSA, if I understand it correctly,” he tells her.

Cassie sits up, straightening her back.

“She’s going after Mom.” It’s not a question.

He nods. “If anyone is clever and determined enough to do it, it’s Alex Parrish.”

Cassie shrugs the blanket off, the room having become sufficiently warm, and leans carefully against his shoulder, mindful of his still not entirely healed injuries.

“Someday,” she says.

She doesn’t continue.

Someday, she might be able to see her brother. Someday, he might be able to say to Caleb everything he should have long ago. Someday, maybe they won’t be hiding anymore.

Someday.

**Author's Note:**

> I finally saw the last two episodes of S1. I had feels, and this is the result.
> 
> I loved Clayton, so I had to eventually do something about that ‘death’ thing. But it seems basically everyone but me hated Clayton, so no one is probably reading this; however, if you have read it, please, do tell me what you think. Comments are always welcome.


End file.
